No, there wasn't a warrant for him then. Let me attempt to clear this up a little bit. Prosecutors allege that Mr. Russell threatened witnesses April 2 outside of a courtroom. He was arrested that day on those allegations. He posted bond -- which I've commented in prior stories was a fair, typical bond for the charge he faces -- and then returned to the courthouse for arraignment. He returned again April 18 for a preliminary hearing on the witness intimidation charge. Judge Tarrant bound his co-defendant, Octavius Quinn, over for trial, but the witness who prosecutors said would identify Russell as one of the men making threats did not appear for the hearing. Tarrant delayed the remainder of the hearing until a later date. Mr. Russell was free on bond and thus left the courthouse. The 10-felony warrant mentioned above was issued after that date. When the warrant was issued, Judge Tarrant issued her own bench warrant in the witness intimidation case.

I disagree. Mr. Russell has three prior felony cases. While there was plea agreements in all three, none of the charges that were dropped actually would have affected his sentence. In fact, Russell was sentenced in 2009 to two years in prison for gun possession. He was released some time around June 2011. His current case, the witness intimidation case, hasn't reached Circuit Court yet.

You're not being very specific there, but I'm assuming you're referring to the Sean Stennett case, in which testimony from a trial showed that Steven Rembish and Jonathon Jones conspired together to open fire at a four-apartment building on the city's West Side. Testimony showed they wanted to kill a man who allegedly molested Rembish's girlfriend some 20 years before. They didn't get the location of the alleged molester from the newspaper -- it came from the girlfriend. The alleged molestation wasn't even reported to the police and thus never was reported about. I have no idea how that's relevant.

And, again, if any individual whose legal troubles we're writing about comes to us and says they feel threatened by us using their address, we stop using it. It happened to me earlier this week, and I didn't use the address in my article, no questions asked.

There is one standard of privacy -- if somebody's at risk by publishing their address, it isn't published. I think it's pretty understandable to think that by publishing a police officer's address, they're at risk of retribution by the hundreds and sometimes thousands of individuals who the officer has arrested. You may not agree, and that's fine. But that's our policy.

First, publishing defendants' addresses but not publishing police officers' address has been a policy at the News for more than a decade, and I'm sure much longer. Second, publishing defendants' addresses also has been such a policy. I'm not sure what "recent" decisions you're referring to, but it sure can't be those two.

Additionally, you're right -- they are innocent until proven guilty. That doesn't necessarily mean we can't or shouldn't print their addresses. For as long as I've been covering courts, I've followed up to and including resolution of every case of any individual whose name and address I've published. If that means they're found innocent or the charges are dismissed, so be it. That's published, too. It's not as if I write about somebody's legal troubles and publish their address once and leave it at that.

We're not going to start publishing the home addresses of police officers when they are charged with a crime. There's an inherent safety risk in doing so, considering how many people each officer has arrested. It's the same reason we don't publish the addresses of police officers running for local office. If a private citizen who is charged with a crime expresses to us that they feel our publishing of their address has jeopardized their safety, we stop publishing the address.

My article from Mr. Beemer's preliminary hearing indicates that the OWI-second offense charge was dropped "because the statute of limitations from Beemer’s previous conviction has expired." That's what the Genesee County assistant prosecutor said.

My understanding was that Mr. Beemer's first conviction was from 2000 and that the statute of limitations is 10 years. It doesn't typically take eight months to process a blood test for BAC, but it does take multiple months. Either way, I think that statute of limitations already would have been up. Like I said, that's my understanding of the facts. If you know differently, I'm more than willing to listen.

The guidelines themselves definitely are not arbitrary. They're scored by a state Department of Corrections worker and then reviewed by the prosecutor, defense attorney, and judge. How the judge utilizes the sentencing guidelines is another thing. I suppose that's why they're paid the big bucks, to use their discretion. In this case, and others when the judge wants to exceed the guidelines, he or she must state "substantial and compelling reasons" for doing so. The appellate judges clearly decided that Judge Boes did so in this case.

Mr. Beemer and his attorney clearly don't believe that Mr. Ray's injury was "serious." We'll see how much they argue the "Super Drunk" charge, considering a blood test showed his results to be high enough to meet the statute. But he's charged with a felony, and he has every right to fight that and make a prosecutor prove to a jury beyond a reasonable doubt that Mr. Ray's injury was "serious."

The story hasn't been "hiding" since August. The criminal justice process, especially in Saginaw County and especially for defendants not in jail, takes a while. I've written an article every time a new development in this case has come.

You're right, our articles weren't published until 6 months (almost to the day) after Mr. Chaffee's arrest. There's a couple of reasons for that. First, when Mr. Chaffee was arrested, we were more than aware of it. We knew about it immediately, too. But as we explained when we published our articles, we didn't feel it was appropriate to publish a story on the arrest because Mr. Chaffee was a private citizen. After the plea deal occurred, we thought about it a little more, but still didn't write a story. It wasn't until I started some digging and realized just how rare the plea deal was that we decided to do anything with it. At that point, the entire issue needed to be examined -- not just a simple story stating that Mr. Chaffee got a deal.

I'd also like to point out some inaccuracies in your comments. First, Mr. Chaffee's blood alcohol content was not twice the legal limit. Second, he was no longer the Editor or Publisher at The Saginaw News. I believe his official final date was in September 2009, but it definitely was not after his January 2010 arrest. Finally, a third party did not alert us to anything. We knew of the arrest when it happened, knew of the plea deal when it happened, and knew of his minor fine when it was assessed. We did our own research, which was very extensive, to establish just how rare the plea deal was and how oddly it was handled.

The plea bargain process is essential to the criminal justice system. It's important, though, that these defendants have all of their rights maintained and recognized before the process concludes. For every case like this, where the defendant changes his mind several times, there could be a case where an individual legally should not have entered a plea. It's not often that defendants are allowed the withdraw their pleas, but it happens. I understand the thinking of "well, he admitted to it, so he should be considered guilty from now on," but the only reason Mr. Harris and other defendants enter into a plea agreement is based on an understanding of what their sentence will be if they plead guilty. The prosecutor has to hold up his/her end of the bargain, too. Otherwise, the prosecutor has to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant committed the crimes.

I understand what you're saying, but it would be absurd for the police to simply leave and let him fend for himself. I'm not defending Mr. White's lack of cooperation, but I do think it is important to point out that there are several possible reasons why Mr. White won't cooperate. A possible dislike for police and/or "snitching" may be one, but there's also a fear of (more) retaliation for cooperating. I'm not saying this is what happened this time. I have no idea why Mr. White isn't cooperating. But the police can't just stop investigating shootings because some victims don't want to cooperate. That doesn't solve any problems.